Original Guest Post

by Jai Singh

There is currently increasing journalistic scrutiny of the atheist British scientist Richard Dawkins and his ally Sam Harris’ statements about Islam and Muslims. In December 2012, the Guardian published an excellent article highlighting the acclaimed physicist Professor Peter Higgs’ accurate observations about Dawkins’ pattern of behaviour when it comes to religion in general; Professor Higgs (of “Higgs Boson particle” fame) has forcefully criticised Dawkins. More recently, superb articles by Nathan Lean in Salon (focusing on Dawkins), Murtaza Hussain for Al Jazeera (focusing on Dawkins, Harris etc) and Glenn Greenwald in the Guardian (mentions Dawkins but focuses predominantly on Harris; also see here) have received considerable publicity. Readers are strongly advised to familiarise themselves with the information in all of these articles.

Before I address the issue of Richard Dawkins, it is worthwhile highlighting some key information about his ally Sam Harris. As mentioned in Glenn Greenwald’s extensively-researched Guardian article, Harris is on record as a) claiming that fascists are “the people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe”, and b) stating “We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim”. Furthermore, bear in mind the following paragraph from a previous Guardian article about Harris: “…..But it tips over into something much more sinister in Harris’ latest book. He suggests that Islamic states may be politically unreformable because so many Muslims are “utterly deranged by their religious faith”. In another passage Harris goes even further, and reaches a disturbing conclusion that “some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them”.”

Richard Dawkins’ “atheist anti-religion” agenda has noticeably become increasingly focused on Islam & Muslims; his online statements (recently including his Twitter account ) have now become so extreme that a great deal of them are essentially indistinguishable from the bigoted, ignorant nonsense pushed by the English Defence League leadership and the main US-based anti-Muslim propagandists such as Robert Spencer etc.

In fact, as Nathan Lean’s Salon article mentioned, the following very revealing information recently surfaced: It turns out that Dawkins has publicly admitted that he hasn’t even read the Quran even though (in his own words) he “often says Islam is the greatest force for evil today”. Mainstream Islamic theology (including the associated impact on Muslim history) is not based solely on the Quran, of course, but Dawkins’ admission is indicative of a number of major problems on his part. So much for the credibility of Richard Dawkins’ “scientific method” in this particular subject. It goes without saying that this also raised questions about exactly which dubious second-hand sources Dawkins has been getting his information on Islam and Muslims from, if he hasn’t even taken the normal professional academic steps of reading the primary sacred text of the religion he has also described as “an unmitigated evil”. Not to mention the question of Dawkins’ real motivations for his current fixation with Islam and Muslims.

Well, it appears that some answers are available. It certainly explains a great deal about Richard Dawkins’ behaviour. In the main part of this article beneath the “Summary” section below, I have listed 54 anti-Islam/anti-Muslim statements posted by Richard Dawkins on the discussion forum of one of his own websites. (The list of quotes also includes embedded URL links directly to the original statements on Dawkins’ website).

Summary of Richard Dawkins’ actions

1. There is a direct connection to Robert Spencer’s inner circle. As confirmed by the URL link supplied by Richard Dawkins in quote #11, Dawkins has definitely been using that cabal’s anti-Muslim propaganda as a source of “information” for his own statements; Dawkins specifically links to the “Islam-Watch” website, which is a viciously anti-Muslim site in the same vein as JihadWatch and Gates of Vienna (both of which were the most heavily cited sources in the terrorist Anders Breivik’s manifesto). More pertinently, as confirmed by this affiliated webpage, the core founders & members of that website include the currently-unidentified individual who uses the online alias “Ali Sina”. This is the same fake “atheist Iranian ex-Muslim” who is a senior board member of “SIOA”/“SION”, an extremely anti-Muslim organisation whose leadership is formally allied with racist white supremacists & European neo-Nazis and has even organised joint public demonstrations with them. “Ali Sina” himself was also cited by Breivik in his manifesto.

Note that the SIOA/SION leadership inner circle includes: a) AFDI and JihadWatch’s Robert Spencer, an ordained Catholic deacon who has been proven to have repeatedly made false statements about Islam & Muslims and has publicly admitted that his actions are heavily motivated by his (unilateral) agenda for the dominance of the Catholic Church; b) AFDI and Atlas Shrugs’ Pamela Geller, who is now on record as advocating what is effectively a “Final Solution” targeting British Muslims, including mass-murder; c) the English Defence League leadership; and d) David Yerushalmi, the head of an organisation whose mission statement explicitly declares that its members are “dedicated to the rejection of democracy” in the United States. Furthermore, Yerushalmi believes that American women shouldn’t even have the right to vote.

Extensive details on “Ali Sina” are available here. Quite a few of the quotes in that article are horrifying. Bear in mind that this is the person whose website Richard Dawkins has publicly cited and promoted. “Ali Sina” is on record as making statements such as the following:

“Muhammad was not a prophet of God. He was an instrument of Satan to divide mankind so we destroy each other. It is a demonic plot to end humanity.”

“I don’t see Muslims as innocent people. They are all guilty as sin. It is not necessary to be part of al Qaida to be guilty. If you are a Muslim you agree with Muhammad and that is enough evidence against you.”

“Muslims, under the influence of Islam lose their humanity. They become beasts. Once a person’s mind is overtaken by Islam, every trace of humanity disappears from him. Islam reduces good humans into beasts.”

[Addressing all Muslims] “We will do everything to save you, to make you see your folly, and to make you understand that you are victims of a gigantic lie, so you leave this lie, stop hating mankind and plotting for its destruction and it [sic] domination. But if all efforts fail and you become a threat to our lives and the lives of our children, we must amputate you. This will happen, not because I say so, but I say so because this is human response. We humans are dictated by our survival instinct. If you threaten me and my survival depends on killing you, I must kill you.”

“Muslims are part of humanity, but they are the diseased limb of mankind. We must strive to rescue them. We must do everything possible to restore their health. That is the mission of FFI [“Faith Freedom International”, “Ali Sina’s” primary website]. However, if a limb becomes gangrenous; if it is infected by necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease), that limb must be amputated.”

[Addressing all Muslims] “But you are diseased. You are infected by a deadly cult that threatens our lives. Your humanity is destroyed. Like a limb infected by flesh eating disease, you are now a threat to the rest of mankind…..Islam is disease. What does moderate Muslim mean anyway? Does it mean you are moderately diseased?”

“But there was another element in shaping his [Muhammad’s] character: The influence of Rabbis. Islam and Judaism have a lot in common. They have basically the same eschatology and very similar teachings…..These are all secondary influences of Judaism on Islam. The main common feature between these two faiths is their intolerance. This intolerance in Judaic texts gave the narcissist Muhammad the power to do as he pleased…..How could he get away with that? Why would people believed [sic] in his unproven and often irrational claims? The answer to this question is in Judaism. The Rabbis in Arabia had laid the psychological foundations for Islam among the tolerant pagans…..The reasons Arabs fell into his [Muhammad’s] trap was because of the groundwork laid by the Rabbis in Arabia.”

“Muhammad copied his religion from what he learned from the Jews. The similarity between Islamic thinking and Judaic thinking is not a coincidence.”

“By seeing these self-proclaimed moderate Muslims, I can understand the anger that Jesus felt against those hypocrites whom he called addressed, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.”

“In Christianity, it wasn’t the religion that needed to be reformed but the church. What Jesus preached was good.”

“The image portrays the words of Jesus, “the truth will set you free.” That is my motto…..After listening to this rabbi, I somehow felt sympathy for Jesus. I can now see what kind of people he had to deal with.”

2. After Nathan Lean and Glenn Greenwald published the aforementioned Salon and Guardian articles, both “Ali Sina” and Robert Spencer rapidly wrote lengthy articles on their respective websites defending Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris. It would therefore be constructive for Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris to publicly clarify if they welcome or reject “Ali Sina” & Robert Spencer’s support. It would also be constructive for Dawkins and Harris to publicly clarify the nature and extent of their involvement with “Ali Sina” & Robert Spencer.

3. Richard Dawkins’ anti-Islam/anti-Muslim narrative (including the stereotyped caricature and his own convoluted strawman arguments) is essentially identical to the hatred-inciting, theologically-, historically- & factually-distorted/falsified propaganda promoted by Far-Right groups such as the English Defence League and especially the owners of JihadWatch and Gates of Vienna. This is clearly not just a coincidence, considering Dawkins’ online sources of [mis]information.

4. Richard Dawkins is now on record as making a series of extremely derogatory statements in which he bizarrely refers to Islam (a religious belief system) as though it were a conscious, sentient entity (see #5, #32, #36, #49). The nature of those statements suggests that Dawkins is actually referring to Muslims. (Also see #7).

5. Richard Dawkins is now on record as repeatedly defending Sam Harris, including Harris’ claims about Muslims and Islam (see #42, #43).

6. Richard Dawkins is now on record as enthusiastically praising the Dutch Far-Right politician Geert Wilders (see #50).

7. Richard Dawkins is now on record as publicly claiming that “communities” has become code for “Muslims” (see #18) and that “multiculturalism” in Europe is code for “Islam” (see #19).

8. Richard Dawkins is now on record as repeatedly praising & defending Ayaan Hirsi Ali (see #20, #26, #50). Hirsi Ali has been proven to have fabricated aspects of her background/experiences (as confirmed by the BBC). Hirsi Ali is also on record as revealing the full scale of her horrific beliefs, including the fact that she sympathises with Anders Breivik and blames so-called “advocates of silence” for Breivik’s mass-murdering terrorist attack.

9. Richard Dawkins is now on record as repeatedly promoting the Far-Right conspiracy theory that British police avoid prosecuting Muslims due to fears of being labelled “racist” or “Islamophobic” (see #1, #24, #28, #45). Robert Spencer & Pamela Geller’s closest European allies, the English Defence League leadership, are amongst the most vocal advocates of this ridiculous conspiracy theory.

10. Richard Dawkins is now on record as explicitly describing himself as “a cultural Christian” (see #54).

11. Richard Dawkins is now on record as proposing what is basically an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” strategy, specifically in terms of Christians vs. Muslims (see here and here. Also see #16). This raises questions about exactly how much support Dawkins has secretly been giving to certain extremist anti-Muslim individuals/groups, or at least how much he is personally aware that these groups are explicitly recycling Dawkins’ own rhetoric when demonising Islam & Muslims.

12. Richard Dawkins is now on record as exhibiting very disturbing attitudes towards the British Muslim Member of Parliament Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and the British Muslim Independent journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, including repeatedly making highly offensive claims that they are “tokens” with zero qualifications for their respective jobs and are in positions of seniority/influence solely because they are “female, Muslim and brown/non-white” (See #25, #29, #30, #31, #35, #53). Dawkins clearly shares the EDL leadership’s noticeable hostility towards Baroness Warsi in particular; furthermore, note Dawkins’ sneering “open letter” to Baroness Warsi (see #29), and also note the fact that the EDL leadership recently published a similar “open letter” to Baroness Warsi on their main website, written by an unidentified anonymous author.

13. Richard Dawkins has published a lengthy diatribe by Robert Spencer/Pamela Geller/EDL ally/SIOE co-founder Stephen Gash.

14. Richard Dawkins has enthusiastically republished a large number of viciously anti-Muslim comments originally posted on the discussion thread of a Telegraph article written by Baroness Warsi. Dawkins claimed that the only reason he was reproducing these comments on his own website was “because the Telegraph is apparently censoring them”.

15. Despite the claims of Richard Dawkins’ defenders that he is an “equal opportunity offender” in terms of his criticisms of various organised religions, the aforementioned 54 quotes speak for themselves and Dawkins’ real pattern of behaviour is self-evident. Amongst other things, it raises the question of whether Dawkins was already perfectly aware that the anti-Islam/anti-Muslim propaganda he is basing his statements on originates in members of Robert Spencer’s extremist inner circle and their respective hate websites (which would have very nasty implications about Dawkins himself), or whether Dawkins has been astonishingly incompetent about researching his sources of “information”.

16. Further information on Richard Dawkins’ other activities targeting Islam & Muslims is available here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Examples of statements by Richard Dawkins:
#1: [Quoting: “No I don’t think it was racist to feel that way. If you saw a European mistreating his wife in public wouldn’t you feel the same? “] “Of course. In that case I might have called a policeman. If you see a Muslim beating his wife, there would be little point in calling a policeman because so many of the British police are terrified of being accused of racism or ‘Islamophobia’.”

#2: “Religion poisons everything. But Islam has its own unmatched level of toxicity.”

#3: “Religion poisons everything, but Islam is in a toxic league of its own.”

#4: “…..But let’s keep things in proportion. Christianity may be pretty bad, but isn’t Islam in a league of its own when it comes to sheer vicious nastiness?”

#5: [Quoting: “He blamed ‘radical stupid people who don't know what Islam is,’”] “They are certainly stupid, but they know exactly what Islam is. Islam is the religion that wins arguments by killing its opponents and crying ‘Islamophobia’ at anyone who objects.”

#6: “This horrible film deserves to go viral. What a pathetic religion: how ignominious to need such aggressively crazed defenders.”

#7: “Muslims seem to suffer from an active HUNGER to be offended. If there’s nothing obvious to be offended by, or ‘hurt’ by, they’ll go out looking for something. Are there any other similar examples we could think of, I wonder, not necessarily among religious groups?”

#8: “Paula’s letter in today’s Independent (see above) will doubtless provoke lots of fatuous bleats of “Oh but Islam is a peaceful religion.””

#9: [Quoting: “But it has nothing to do with islam.”] “Oh no? Then why do the perpetrators, and the mullahs and imams and ayatollahs and ‘scholars’, continually SAY it has everything to do with Islam? You may not think it has anything to do with Islam, but I prefer to listen to what the people responsible actually say. I would also love it if decent, ‘moderate’ Muslims would stand up and condemn the barbarisms that are carried out, or threatened, in their name.”

#10: “What is there left to say about Sharia Law? Who will defend it? Who can find something, anything, good to say about Islam?”

#11: [Quoting: “needed to respect other religions”] “That word ‘other’ worries me and so does ‘respect’. ‘Other’ than what? What is the default religion which makes the word ‘other’ appropriate? What is this ‘other’ religion, which is being invoked in this high-handed, peremptory way. It isn’t hard to guess the answer. Islam. Yet again, Islam, the religion of peace, the religion that imposes the death penalty for apostasy, the religion whose legal arm treats women officially as second class citizens, the religion that sentences women to multiple lashes for the crime of being raped, the religion whose ‘scholars’ have been known to encourage women to suckle male colleagues so that they can be deemed ‘family’ and hence allowed to work in the same room; the religion that the rest of us are called upon to ‘respect’ for fear of being thought racist or ‘Islamophobic’. Respect? RESPECT?”

#12: “All three of the Abrahamic religions are deeply evil if they take their teachings seriously. Islam is the only one that does.”

#13: “Yes, Christians are much much better. Their sacred texts may be just as bad, but they don’t act on them.”

#14: “Quite the contrary. I think the problem [with Islam] is with the MAJORITY of Muslims, who either condone violence or fail to speak out against it. I am now praising the MINORITY who have finally decided to stand up for peace and nonviolence.”

#15: [Quoting: “Actually I think linking to every video this bigot releases does look like an endorsement, even if it's unintentional. Why not link to some news items by some other right wing bigots the BNP or the EDL, they're always banging on about Islam so it should qualify.”] “I support Pat [Condell]’s stance on Islam. It is NOT based on racism like that of the BNP, and he is properly scathing about so-called ‘Islamophobia’.”

#16: “After the last census, Christianity in Britain benefited, in terms of political influence, from the approximately 70% who ticked the Christian box, whether or not they were really believers. With the menacing rise of Islam, some might even be tempted to tick the Christian box, for fear of doing anything to boost the influence of the religion of “peace””.

#17: [Quoting: “What sort of justice is this? My daughter has been beaten to death in the name of justice,” Mosammet's father, Dorbesh Khan, 60, told the BBC.] “What sort of justice? Islamic justice of course.”

#18: “Just as ‘communities’ has become code for ‘Muslims’, ‘multiculturalism’ is code for a systematic policy of sucking up to their often loathsome ‘community leaders’: imams, mullahs, ‘clerics’, and the ill-named ‘scholars’.”

#19: “Forgive me for not welcoming this judgment with unalloyed joy. If I thought the motive was secularist I would indeed welcome it. But are we sure it is not pandering to ‘multiculturalism’, which in Europe is code for Islam? And if you think Catholicism is evil . . .”

#20: “I don’t think this is a matter for levity. Think of it as a foretaste of more serious things to come. They’ve already hounded Ayaan Hirsi Ali out of Holland and their confidence is growing with their population numbers, encouraged by the craven accommodationist mentality of nice, decent Europeans. This particular move to outlaw dogs will fail, but Muslim numbers will continue to grow unless we can somehow break the memetic link between generations: break the assumption that children automatically adopt the religion of their parents.”

#21: “I said that Islam is evil. I did NOT say Muslims are evil. Indeed, most of the victims of Islam are Muslims. Especially female ones.”

#22: “Whenever I read an article like this, I end up shaking my head in bafflement. Why would anyone want to CONVERT to Islam? I can see why, having been born into it, you might be reluctant to leave, perhaps when you reflect on the penalty for doing to. But for a woman (especially a woman) voluntarily to JOIN such a revolting and misogynistic institution when she doesn’t have to always suggests to me massive stupidity. And then I remember our own very intelligent Layla Nasreddin / Lisa Bauer and retreat again to sheer, head-shaking bafflement.”

#23: “Apologists for Islam would carry more conviction if so-called ‘community’ leaders would ever go to the police and report the culprits. That would solve, at a stroke, the problem that has been exercising posters here. ‘Community’ leaders are best placed to know what is going on on their ‘communities’. Why don’t they report the perpetrators to the police and have them jailed?”

#24: “Presumably we shall hear all the usual accommodationist bleats about “Nothing to do with Islam”, and “It’s cultural, not religious” and “Islam doesn’t approve the practice”. Whether or not Islam approves the practice depends – as with the death penalty for apostasy – on which ‘scholar’ you talk to. Islamic ‘scholar’? What a joke. What a sick, oxymoronic joke. Islamic ‘scholar’!
It is of course true that not all Muslims mutilate their daughters, or approve it. But I conjecture that it is true that virtually all, if not literally all, the 24,000 girls referred to come from Muslim families. And all, or virtually all those who wield the razor blade (or the broken glass or whatever it is) are devout Muslims. And above all, the reason the police turn a blind eye to this disgusting practice is that they THINK it is sanctioned by Islam, or they think it is no business of anybody outside the ‘community’, and they are TERRIFIED of being called ‘Islamophobic’ or racist.”

#25: “Apologies if this has already been said here, but “Baroness” Warsi has no sensible qualifications for high office whatever. She has never won an election and never distinguished herself in any of the ways that normally lead to a peerage. All she has achieved in life is to FAIL to be elected a Member of Parliament, twice (on one occasion ignominiously bucking the swing towards her party). She was, nevertheless, elevated to the peerage and rather promptly put in the Cabinet and the Privy Council. The only reasonable explanation for her rapid elevation is tokenism. She is female, Muslim, and non-white – a bundle of three tokens in one, and therefore a precious rarity in her party. You might have suspected her lack of proper qualifications from the fatuous things she says, of which her speech in Rome is a prime example.”

#26: [Quoting: “Muslim extremists have called for Aan to be beheaded but fellow atheists have rallied round, and urged him to stand by his convictions despite the pressure.”] “For one sadly short moment I thought the ‘but’ was going to be followed by ‘moderate Muslims have rallied round . . .’ Once again, where are the decent, moderate Muslims? Why do they not stand up in outrage against their co-religionists? Maybe Ayaan Hirsi Ali is right and “moderate Muslim” is something close to an oxymoron. How can they not see that, if you need to kill to protect your faith, that is a powerful indication that you have lost the argument? It is impossible to exaggerate how deeply I despise them.”

#27: “There are moves afoot to introduce sharia law into Britain, Canada and various other countries. I hope it is not too “islamophobic” of me to hope that the “interpretation” of sharia favoured by our local Muslim “scholars” will be different from the “interpretation” favoured by Iranian “scholars”. Oh but of course: “That’s not my kind of Islam.””

#28: [Quoting: “Richard, I really dislike disagreeing with you. However, female genital mutilation is not really based on Islam. My wife is from Indonesia and I have asked around and none of them know of anyone who does that in their country. From all that I have read and seen, it seems like it predates islam and is mostly found in Africa and to a lesser extent the Middle East.”] “Even if you are right (and I am not necessarily conceding the point) that FGM itself is not based on Islam, I strongly suspect that the British police turning a blind eye to it is very strongly based on islamophobophobia – the abject terror of being thought islamophobic.”

#29: “Dear Lady Warsi
Is it true that the Islamic penalty for apostasy is death? Please answer the question, yes or no. I have asked many leading Muslims, often in public, and have yet to receive a straight answer. The best answer I heard was from “Sir” Iqbal Sacranie, who said “Oh well, it is seldom enforced.”
Will you please stand up in the House of Lords and publicly denounce the very idea that, however seldom enforced, a religion has the right to kill those who leave it? And will you stand up and agree that, since a phobia is an irrational fear, “Islamophobic” is not an appropriate description of anybody who objects to it. And will you stand up and issue a public apology, on behalf of your gentle, peaceful religion, to Salman Rushdie? And to Theo van Gogh? And to all the women and girls who have been genitally mutilated? And to . . . I’m sure you know the list better than I do.
Richard Dawkins”

#30: [Quoting: “Blimey Richard! This really has got up your nose, hasn't it? Your comments are usually a great deal more measured. It's not exactly uncommon for a Minister to “rise without trace”. I think we can all agree that our political system is “sub-optimal” to put it politely. Tokensim is one possibility (though if the Tories were really just after the muslim vote its interesting that they opted for a female muslim token).”] “I didn’t mean to suggest that the Tories were after the Muslim vote. I think they know that is a lost cause. I suspect that they were trying to live down their reputation as the nasty party, the party of racists, the party of sexists, the Church of England at prayer. More particularly, the ceaseless propaganda campaign against “Islamophobia” corrupts them just as it corrupts so many others. I suspect that the Tory leadership saw an opportunity to kill two, or possibly three, birds with one stone, by elevating this woman to the House of Lords and putting her in the Cabinet.
I repeat, her [Baroness Sayeeda Warsi’s] qualifications for such a meteoric rise, as the youngest member of the House of Lords, are tantamount to zero. As far as I can see, her only distinction is to have stood for election to the House of Commons and lost. That’s it.
Apart, of course, from being female, Muslim, and brown. Like I said, killing three birds with one stone.”

#31: “Baroness Warsi has never been elected to Parliament. What are her qualifications to be in the Cabinet? Does anyone seriously think she would be in the Cabinet, or in the House of Lords, if she was not a Muslim woman? Is her elevation to high office (a meteoric rise, for she is the youngest member of the House of Lords) any more than a deplorable example of tokenism?”

#32: “I too heard Paul Foot speak at the Oxford Union, and he was a mesmerising orator, even as an undergraduate. Once again, Christopher Hitchens nails it. It is the nauseating presumption of Islam that marks it out for special contempt. I remain baffled at the number of otherwise decent people who can be seduced by such an unappealing religion. I suppose it must be childhood indoctrination, but it is still hard to credit. If you imagine setting up an experiment to see how far you could go with childhood indoctrination – a challenge to see just how nasty a belief system you could instil into a human mind if you catch it early enough – it is hard to imagine succeeding with a belief system half as nasty as Islam. And yet succeed they do.”

#33: “Orthodox political opinion would have it that the great majority of Muslims are good people, and there is just a small minority of extremists who give the religion a bad name. Poll evidence has long made me sceptical. Now – it is perhaps a minor point, but could it be telling? – Salman Taseer is murdered by one of his own bodyguard. If ‘moderate’ Muslims are the great majority that we are asked to credit, wouldn’t you think it should have been easy enough to find enough ‘moderate’ Muslims, in the entire state of Pakistan, to form the bodyguard of a prominent politician? Are ‘moderate’ Muslims so thin on the ground?”

#34: “It is almost a cliché that people of student age often experiment with a variety of belief systems, which they subsequently, and usually quite rapidly, give up. These young people have voluntarily adopted a belief system which has the unique distinction of prescribing execution as the official penalty for leaving it. I have enormous sympathy for those people unfortunate enough to be born into Islam. It is hard to muster much sympathy for those idiotic enough to convert to it.”

#35: [Quoting: “Why do any media outlets keep repeatedly inviting her [Yasmin Alibhai-Brown] (excluding more capable, intelligent, qualified guests) as if she is some kind of authority or expert on anything at all?”] “Do you really need to ask that question? Media people are petrified of being thought racist, Islamophobic or sexist. The temptation to kill three birds with one stone must be irresistible.”

#36: [Quoting: “I'm surprised nobody has acknowledged the elephant in the room -- namely, multicultural appeasement of Islam. The fact that (a) the paper was accepted, and (b) it took only five days to get accepted, suggests that there's something funny going on here. Could it be that the referee of the paper was a subscriber to the popular opinion in Britain that anything associated with Muslims short of murder in broad daylight is somehow praiseworthy and something to be encouraged?”] “Yes, I’m sorry to say that is all too plausible. Perhaps the Editor decided it would be “Islamophobic” to reject it.”

#37: [Quoting: “I seem to remember a very bright young muslim lad”] You mean a bright young child of muslim parents.

#38: “Oh, small as it is, this is the most heartening news I have heard for a long time. What can we do to help these excellent young Pakistanis, without endangering them? If, by any chance, any of them reads this web site, please get in touch to let us know how we might help. If anybody here has friends in Pakistan, or elsewhere afflicted by the ‘religion of peace’ (it isn’t even funny any more, is it?), or facebook friends, please encourage them to join and support these brave young people.”

#39: [Quoting: “The obvious question is: who cares, are we saying when it was a catholic school it was ok and a Muslim school is worse.”] “Yes. It is worse. MUCH worse”

#40: [Quoting: “I was even accused of having converted and married into another religion. But I wasn't worried as I'm a true Muslim," says the feisty young woman.”] If only she were a bit more feisty she would cease to be a Muslim altogether – except that would make her an apostate, for which the Religion of Peace demands stoning. Indeed, you’ll probably find she’d be sentenced to 99 lashes just for the crime of being feisty.”

#41: [Quoting: “Disgusting and hideous as this practice is, I think the article makes it quite clear that it's not limited to any one religion or community. It's common to Christians, Muslims, Hindus, yezidis and many others.”] I just did a rough count (I may have missed one or two) of the named victims Robert Fisk mentioned. As follows:
Muslim 52
Hindu 3
Sikh 1
Christian 0
But of course, Islam is the religion of peace. To suggest otherwise would be racist Islamophobia.”

#42:
“Whatever else you may say about Sam Harris’s article quoted above, and whether or not he is right about the NY mosque, the following two paragraphs, about Islam more generally, seem to me well worth repeating.
Richard”
[Quotes Sam Harris] “The first thing that all honest students of Islam must admit is that it is not absolutely clear where members of al Qaeda, the Taliban, al-Shabab, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hamas, and other Muslim terrorist groups have misconstrued their religious obligations. If they are “extremists” who have deformed an ancient faith into a death cult, they haven’t deformed it by much. When one reads the Koran and the hadith, and consults the opinions of Muslim jurists over the centuries, one discovers that killing apostates, treating women like livestock, and waging jihad—not merely as an inner, spiritual struggle but as holy war against infidels—are practices that are central to the faith. Granted, one path out of this madness might be for mainstream Muslims to simply pretend that this isn’t so—and by this pretense persuade the next generation that the “true” Islam is peaceful, tolerant of difference, egalitarian, and fully compatible with a global civil society. But the holy books remain forever to be consulted, and no one will dare to edit them. Consequently, the most barbarous and divisive passages in these texts will remain forever open to being given their most plausible interpretations.
Thus, when Allah commands his followers to slay infidels wherever they find them, until Islam reigns supreme (2:191-193; 4:76; 8:39; 9:123; 47:4; 66:9)—only to emphasize that such violent conquest is obligatory, as unpleasant as that might seem (2:216), and that death in jihad is actually the best thing that can happen to a person, given the rewards that martyrs receive in Paradise (3:140-171; 4:74; 47:5-6)—He means just that. And, being the creator of the universe, his words were meant to guide Muslims for all time. Yes, it is true that the Old Testament contains even greater barbarism—but there are obvious historical and theological reasons why it inspires far less Jewish and Christian violence today. Anyone who elides these distinctions, or who acknowledges the problem of jihad and Muslim terrorism only to swiftly mention the Crusades, Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, the Tamil Tigers, and the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma, is simply not thinking honestly about the problem of Islam.”

#43: [Quoting: “I am newish here (and not planning to stay). Could someone please just set my mind at rest by confirming whether or not this poster is the real Prof. Dawkins. I really, really hope not. I used to have respect for him and I supposed that, being a busy man, he would never have time to come here, and therefore could not be held responsible for all the bigotry, against believers in general, and Muslims in particular, which gets aired here in the guise of Reason. If this really is him, then I guess he can't disassociate himself from it and from the charge of providing a platform for bigots and haters. If it's really you, Prof. Dawkins, you should be ashamed of yourself.” Quoting his own comment: “Whatever else you may say about Sam Harris's article quoted above, and whether or not he is right about the NY mosque, the following two paragraphs, about Islam more generally, seem to me well worth repeating. Richard”] “You mean the Koran and the Hadith don’t say what Sam claims they say? I’m delighted to hear that, but can you substantiate it? I do hope you can, then we can all sleep easier. If, on the other hand, Sam is summarising Islamic scriptures accurately, why should I be ashamed of myself for simply quoting Sam’s accurate summary?”

#44: “Some critics have suggested that Paula should fairly have quoted, in equal measure, from Islamic scriptures. Since she was responding to a specific question set by the Washington Post about ‘religious and moral considerations’, it was appropriate for her to concentrate on the religions that dominate the readership of the Washington Post, namely Christianity and Judaism. However, it would be an interesting exercise for one of our Koranically-informed readers to undertake a matching article drawing on the scriptures of the ‘Religion of Peace’. Which of the ‘great’ monotheistic faiths will win First Prize for bloodthirsty nastiness and ethnic cleansing zeal?”

#45: “I have it on the authority of a London schools inspector that the reason the police do not prosecute is that they are afraid of being accused of racism or “Islamophobia.” In the words of the police officer quoted in this article, they “don’t want to alienate communities.” You might as well refrain from prosecuting child rapists because you don’t want to alienate the pedophile community. If arresting these vicious hags really were “islamophobic” (or course it isn’t), I’d be proud to be called islamophobic.”

#46: “Most Muslims don’t do honour killings, but the vast majority of honour killings are done by Muslims, loyally practising their faith and following what their religion has taught them is the right and proper thing to do.”

#47: [Quoting: “Given what the Palestinians have been through in the last 40 years, expecting polite grace & dignity at all times might be a little optimistic.”] “And you think these people were Palestinians? Or were they just Muslims?”

#48: “Islam is surely the greatest man-made evil in the world today, and I think I’d feel a tiny bit more secure against the menacing threat of Islam and Islamic faith schools, under the Tories than under Labour”.

#49: [Quoting Steve Zara: “Now, it seems like the Cartoons were designed to be quite offensive. That was the artistic intention. Putting aside any judgement on that, wouldn't it have been more interesting if the cartoons had been designed to be hardly offensive at all, in the style of the UK atheist bus campaign. It would have make those claiming insult and offence look very silly indeed.”] “..…The Westergaard cartoon implies nothing more offensive than that Islam is a violent religion, a fact that was amply demonstrated by the response to it. Part of the problem, as many here have pointed out, is that Islam expects special treatment: expects to be allowed to take disproportionate offence, far beyond that assumed by anybody else on Earth.”

#50: “I have just watched Fitna. I don’t know whether it is the original version, but it is the one linked by Jerry Coyne. Maybe Geert Wilders has done or said other things that justify epithets such as ‘disgusting’, or ‘racist’. But as far as this film is concerned, I can see nothing in it to substantiate such extreme vilification. There is much that is disgusting in the film, but it is all contained in the quotations, which I presume to be accurate, from the Koran and from various Muslim preachers and orators, and the clips of atrocities such as beheadings and public executions. At least as far as Fitna is concerned, to call Wilders ‘disgusting’ is surely no more sensible than shooting the messenger. If it is complained that these disgusting Koranic verses, or these disgusting Muslim speeches, or the more than disgusting Muslim executions, are ‘taken out of context’, I should like to be told what the proper context would look like, and how it could possibly make any difference.

To repeat, Wilders may have said and done other things of which I am unaware, which deserve condemnation, but I can see nothing reprehensible in his making of Fitna, and certainly nothing for which he should go on trial. Like the film of Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi-Ali, the style of Fitna is restrained, the music, by Tchaikowski and Grieg, is excellently chosen and contributes to the restrained atmosphere of the film. The horrendous execution scenes are faded out before the coup-de-grace; all the stridency, and almost the only expressions of opinion, come from Muslims, not from Wilders.

Why is this man on trial, unless it is, yet again, pandering to the ludicrous convention that religious opinion must not be ‘offended’? Geert Wilders, if it should turn out that you are a racist or a gratuitous stirrer and provocateur I withdraw my respect, but on the strength of Fitna alone I salute you as a man of courage, who has the balls to stand up to a monstrous enemy.”

#51: [Sarcasm] “How dare you interfere with their culture? Obviously these people should be allowed to follow their own customs, without interference from Islamophobic imperialists. In any case, I expect only SOME women will be stoned for the crime of being raped. And even they will almost certainly deserve it, as they surely wouldn’t have been raped if they hadn’t shown an inch of bare wrist or ankle, or if they hadn’t left the house unaccompanied by a male relative.”

#52: “I am not in favour of banning the burqa, because I am not in favour banning any style of clothing. But I think Pat is right to compare the burqa with a Ku Klux Klan hood or a swastika armband (which shouldn’t be banned either). I think he is right to speak of Islamic fascism, I think he is right to condemn the use of the word ‘Islamophobia’….I think Islam is probably the greatest of all man-made evils in the world today. It takes courage to speak out against it. Pat has that courage. He will be making enough enemies among the Islamofascists. I prefer not to encourage them by attacking him from the other side. “

#53: “For a while now I have carried on a sporadic, and more-or-less friendly, correspondence with Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I continually try to provoke her with the horrors of Islam, in order to persuade her to leave it. She roundly condemns the bad bits of Islam, but I wonder where there are any good bits for her to retreat to. I am becoming increasingly curious. Are there ANY good things about Islam at all?”

#54: “I find it hard not to resent the implication of Comment 36645 by oao. I obviously refer to Christianity, by default, more than to Judaism (or Islam) because I am a cultural Christian, writing in a cultural Christian country (Britain) with an eye to a larger audience in another (more than merely cultural) Christian country (USA).”

by Garibaldi

We have long detailed that Islamophobic pop-Atheist gurus Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and the late Christopher Hitchens were, in varying degrees, apologists for imperialism, colonialism and torture (after experiencing water boarding himself Hitchens spoke out against the practice).

In the past week both Nathan Lean in Salon.com and Murtaza Hussain in AlJazeera English have written scathing critiques of the New Atheist movement leaders. These critiques are not the first of their kind, many have written very well about the views and beliefs of the likes of Harris and Dawkins, including Chris Hedges, PZ Myers, RJ Eskow, Theodore Sayeed, Jeff Sparrow, Scott Atran and a host of others.

It appears both Lean and Hussain’s articles afflicted Harris particularly badly, but apparently when Glenn Greenwald retweeted Hussain’s article it drew a special ire from Harris that he could not ignore; he subsequently shot off an angry email to Glenn Greenwald (read their exchange here).

In today’s Guardian, Glenn Greenwald has written a devastating article exposing Sam Harris’ long and detailed track record of hostile anti-Muslim animus.

by Glenn Greenwald (Guardian)

Richard Dawkins, Pope of New Atheism and Crusader against the “unmitigated evil of Islam” showed up in the “tradionally Christian community of Stornoway” and proceeded to bash Islam.

We are told that he was sure to make the distinction that the “vast majority of Muslims” are not evil, just their “religion.” Would he say the same about Jews, Christians, Buddhists, etc.? Of course not, because in his view it is Islam that is unique amongst world religions in its “evilness.”

What ramifications does this have for treating the “other”? If you view “their” religion as “unmitigated evil” or as one of the “greatest evils on earth,” clearly its practitioners are going to be viewed suspiciously, possibly profiled as “evil-doers.”

Dawkins has long drank from the loony kool aid of Islamophobia. His remarks trespass the bounds of reasoned criticism of Islam into bigotry against Muslims, a fact which mealy-mouthed caveats and disclaimers will not dispel.

‘There’s no God and Islam is evil’ speech earns Richard Dawkins standing ovation

Renowned atheist Professor Richard Dawkins received a surprise standing ovation in the traditionally Christian community of Stornoway last night, following a two-hour speech in which he said there was probably no God.

The 71-year-old described Islam as “one of the great evils of the world” in his lecture, The God Delusion, as part of a rare visit to the Western Isles.

The Global Secular Humanist Movement (GSHM) Facebook page recently posted this drivel from Ayaan Hirsi Ali:

To back this claim, GSHM linked to a 2007 MSNBC article with the propagandistic title of Some young U.S. Muslims approve suicide hits, which in turn cited a Pew study that found that “[o]ne in four younger U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings to defend their religion are acceptable at least in some circumstances.”

This Facebook post is now making its rounds around the internet.  Seeing as how LoonWatch monitors anti-Muslim loons–and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is among the best of them–I thought a response would be worthwhile.

First of all, it should be noted that suicide bombing by itself is not illegal under international law.  In a section entitled “Suicide Attacks and International Law”, Human Rights Watch (HRW) notes that “[s]uicide attacks are a method of warfare that in themselves do not violate the laws of war.”  This is the case if the tactic is used by legitimate combatants against purely military targets in a time and place of war.

In fact, HRW finds that “as weapons [suicide attacks] are very discriminate: a suicide bomber is able to detonate with an accuracy that exceeds that of the most sophisticated guided weapon.”  An Iraqi resistance fighter would inflict far fewer civilian casualties from a suicide attack against a U.S. military installation than a U.S. bomber would inflict from carpet bombing Iraqi cities.  But because U.S. soldiers are the victims of suicide bombing and not carpet bombing, Americans hold the former as the epitome of evil and the latter as perfectly acceptable: hey, it’s war!

The American mentality is very easy to understand: they suicide attack our soldiers, so it’s terrorism and morally atrocious.  We carpet bomb them, so it’s perfectly acceptable: what do you expect in a time of a war?

Forget just carpet bombing: “A Gallup poll in August [of 1945] revealed that 85 percent [of Americans] approved of the use of the atomic bomb against Japanese cities.”  In fact, a poll for Fortune magazine found that another “22.7 percent of respondents agreed with the sentiment: ‘We should have quickly used many more of the [atomic] bombs before Japan had a chance to surrender.’”  Worse yet, a “December 1944 Gallup poll found that 13 percent of respondents favored the killing of all Japanese” after the war: men, women, and children; or, in the words of the chairman of the U.S. government agency the War Manpower Commission, “[t]he extermination of the Japanese in toto.”  (All quotes in this paragraph taken from pp.13-14 of Prof. Sahr Conway-Lanz’s Collateral Damage.)

This is not just some sentiment of a bygone era.  To this day, a “majority of Americans surveyed think dropping atomic bombs on Japan during World War II was the right thing to do.”  I guarantee you that a sizable portion of Americans, if polled today, would agree with nuking Mecca, Medina, and/or Tehran.  Even more would be comfortable with carpet bombing Muslim cities, which is what our military already does.

That such sizable percentages of Americans support carpet and atomic bombings should really cause us to understand Pew’s poll results–and Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s rantings–with some much-needed perspective.

What MSNBC’s article, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s quote, and the Global Secular Humanist Movement’s posting, fail to mention is that an even greater percentage of Americans–of many different religions or no religion at all–justify the targeting and killing of civilians.  This is something I pointed out in an earlier article of mine: Gallup Poll: Jews and Christians Way More Likely than Muslims to Justify Killing Civilians.  This showed that an overwhelming majority of U.S. Muslims (78%) stated that it is never morally justifiable to target and kill civilians, compared to only 38% of Protestants, 39% of Catholics, 43% of Jews, 33% of Mormons, and 56% of people with no religion/atheists/agnostics:

The wily Islamophobes feebly argued back, saying:

The survey is of American Muslims, who are unlikely to be representative of Muslims in Muslim countries or of Muslims in Europe.

To this, I published a follow-up article: Surveys Show Muslims in Every Country Less Likely to Justify Killing Civilians than Americans and Israelis.  In it, we saw the following results:

Percentage of people who said it is sometimes justifiable to target and kill civilians:

Mormon-Americans 64%
Christian-Americans 58%
Jewish-Americans 52%
Israeli Jews 52%
Palestinians* 51%
No religion/Atheists/Agnostics (U.S.A.) 43%
Nigerians* 43%
Lebanese* 38%
Spanish Muslims 31%
Muslim-Americans 21%
German Muslims 17%
French Muslims 16%
British Muslims 16%
Egyptians* 15%
Indonesians* 13%
Jordanians* 12%
Pakistanis* 5%
Turks* 4%

*refers to Muslims only

Of course, the Global Secular Humanist Movement will quickly put up its hands and say: “But, we’re atheists!”  To this, I point out that U.S. Muslims were much more likely to say attacks against civilians are never justifiable (78% vs. 56%).  Aren’t these “secular humanists” beholden to scientific means?  Why then don’t they mention in their posting the results from the control group(s)?  Doing so would of course nullify their thesis.  The fact that U.S. Muslims are more likely to condemn attacks aimed against civilians completely negates their argument that wow, look at how many Moozlums support suicide attacks!

Anti-Muslim ideologues always link present day Muslim violence to Islamic scripture: the implication is that such a sizable percentage of young Muslims believe in suicide bombing because of their religion.  In fact, the opposite holds true: these young Muslims believe in suicide bombing in spite of their religion.

Indeed, such a large percentage of Muslims abhor the targeting and killing of civilians because of their religious canon, which–unlike the Jewish and Christian counterparts–condemns such a thing.  Whereas Moses in the Bible orders his soldiers to “kill all the boys[] and kill every woman” (Numbers 31:17), Muhammad explicitly forbade targeting civilians on numerous occasions, saying:  “Do not kill an infirm old man, an infant, a child, or a woman.” (Sunan Abu Dawood, book 14, #2608)

The Quran also forbids suicide, which is why the overwhelming majority of Muslims oppose suicide bombing, even against purely military targets.  Admittedly, it is true that there exists a debate in some Muslim circles about the morality of suicide attacks against both soldiers and civilians.  However, it is very simplistic to draw the following conclusion:

X percent of Muslims say suicide bombing is sometimes justifiable.  If there exist Y number of Muslims, then that’s a lot of suicide bombers!

This is an erroneous and hasty conclusion.  Rather, X percent of Muslims stating that suicide bombing is sometimes morally justifiable is often simply a manifestation of their sympathies and solidarity with Muslims fighting occupation, specifically Palestinians.  The MSNBC article reads:

…Radwan Masmoudi, president of the Washington-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy…said most supporters of the attacks likely assumed the context was a fight against occupation — a term Muslims often use to describe the conflict with Israel.

Many of these Muslims may fear that condemning such tactics entirely would rob the resistance fighters of their moral high-ground.  It does not mean that they themselves will go out and suicide bomb, no more than it would mean based on the poll results above that an average American would go out and start shooting Muslim civilians.

That a small but sizable portion of Muslims would justify Palestinian attacks on Israeli civilians in the Occupied Territories may sound horrifying, but it ought to be understood in perspective: American and Israeli Jews are more likely to justify targeting and killing civilians (see results above).  Disturbingly, a survey conducted by Haifa University’s Center for the Study of National Security found that a majority of Israeli Jews support a policy of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.

To this day, Americans debate the morality of the U.S. atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with an unsettling majority of them thinking these attacks to be justified.  It would not surprise me if some American readers of our site would go on to justify atomic bombing of Japan in the comments section below.

To be perfectly clear, I find both suicide bombing and atomic bombing to be morally repugnant.  But, atomic bombing is more atrocious by an order of magnitude: it is the ultimate indiscriminate weapon of mass destruction.  A minority of Muslims thinking that suicide bombing is sometimes morally justifiable is hardly as worrisome as a majority of Americans thinking that atomic bombing is perfectly morally justifiable.

*  *  *  *  *

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s quote can be further criticized for focusing on Muslims in only one decade of life (aged 18 to 29).  One could easily inflate the number of Christian, Jewish, or atheist/agnostic Americans who believe that targeting and killing civilians is permissible by focusing on that demographic with the highest results.  For example, older Americans are more likely to think this way, meaning those percentages would be even higher.

As the MSNBC article itself notes, “nearly 80 percent of U.S. Muslims say suicide bombings of civilians to defend Islam can not be justified, 13 percent say they can be, at least rarely.”  That 13% pales in front of the 58% of Protestants, 58% of Catholics, 52% of Jews, 64% of Mormons, and 43% of people with no religion/atheists/agnostics who argue that it is sometimes morally acceptable for the military to target and kill civilians.

As I wrote in my earlier article:

Of course, it would be worthwhile to consider actual results on the ground: we Americans have (at minimum, using conservative numbers) killed 30 times as many Muslim civilians as Muslims have killed of ours, whereas Israelis have killed many-fold the number of civilians as Palestinians have killed of theirs.  Clearly, what people and states do is far more relevant than what they merely believe.

Lastly, I would like to close with a message to the Global Secular Humanist Movement: shame on you for promoting an anti-Muslim demagogue and hatemonger like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.  It is the equivalent of posting up a quote by David Duke on Judaism.  But of course, the GSHM would find it very easy to levy attacks against an embattled minority in the U.S. (Muslims), but would never dare upset Jewish people in the same way.  Muslims are easy targets; GSHM knows that if it did the same thing to Jews, it “would get f*@king buried.”

Religious tolerance is a key feature of secular, liberal democracy in the American tradition.  Although I am not one to engage in nationalistic tribalism, I do deeply admire my country’s legacy of religion-friendly secularism, which stands in stark contrast to the religion-hostile (and un-American) French-style secularism.  Indeed, this latter style of secularism was born out of, and led to, an orgy of violence.  Intolerant secularists like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the Global Secularist Humanist Movement emulate the religious intolerance they supposedly decry.  One can hardly tell the difference between the rantings of “secularist” Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Christian Islamophobes; in fact, one will find the two routinely sharing notes and being very cozy with one another.  Case in point: GSHM’s quote of Ayaan Hirsi Ali has become very popular among Christian Islamophobic circles.  New Atheists like Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens lost all their credibility by jumping on the Islamophobic bandwagon; GSHM loses its credibility by posting Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s hateful screed.

Perhaps GSHM has taken up Ayaan Hirsi Ali because, as noted in yesterday’s featured article, “Ayaan Hirsi Ali (an exmuslim) has replaced Hitchens as the one of the Four Horsemen of New Atheism.”  The truth is that she can hardly be considered a horseman: she’s just an ass.  Ironically but unsurprisingly, it is asses like Ayaan Hirsi Ali who do more to undermine the cause of secularism and liberal democracy in the Muslim majority world than anybody else.  But more on that another time.

Danios was the Brass Crescent Award Honorary Mention for Best Writer in 2010 and the Brass Crescent Award Winner for Best Writer in 2011.

Chris Stedman

A vey good piece by Chris Stedman. He invites Sam Harris to leave his comfort zone, the bully pulpit of his blog, and come experience meeting real, life Muslims, the one he’s eager to have profiled (H/T: CriticalDragon):

by Chris Stedman (Huffington Post)

Sam Harris–I know you’re a busy man, but I’d like to ask you out. Will you go to mosque with me?

I’m not trying to convert you to Islam. Like you, I’m not a Muslim. Like you, I don’t believe in any gods. I’m happily, openly atheist. A queer atheist, even. Like you, I have many significant concerns about Islamic beliefs and practices. But still, I want to visit a mosque with you.

We don’t have to go alone–we could go with Mustafa Abdullah, a young community organizer in Winston-Salem, North Carolina who is currently campaigning against the state’s proposed anti-gay Amendment One. We could attend with Najeeba Syeed-Miller, a teacher and activist who has dedicated her life to peacebuilding initiatives. Or we could go with Eboo Patel, founder of the Interfaith Youth Core, who is committed to promoting pluralism and opposing bigotry, and who regularly speaks up for atheists as a religious minority in the United States.

Why am I inviting you to visit a mosque with me and my friends? Since I’m asking you publicly (I couldn’t find your phone number anywhere and I’m pretty sure this MySpace page isn’t really you), I should probably give some context.

A few weeks ago I saw you speak at the Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne, Australia. Before I go on, I need to confess: your remarks blew me away. In a weekend full of incredible intellects, your frank, contemplative, eloquent speech on death, grief, and mindfulness was easily my favorite. So I was not prepared for the crushing disappointment I felt when, just a few weeks later, you published a piece called “In Defense of Profiling” in which you unequivocally stated: “We should profile Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim, and we should be honest about it.”

Never mind that your argument doesn’t hold water–to quote my friend Hind Makki: “What does a Muslim look like? The 9/11 hijackers didn’t have beards and ‘dressed Western.’ The shoe bomber wasn’t Arab or South Asian. Sikhs wear turbans. The majority of American Muslim women don’t wear hijab. The majority of Arab Americans are Christian–though they often share the same names as their Muslim counterparts. Perhaps Harris would support an initiative that required all Muslims to sew a crescent and star onto our clothes. It would make his airport security time a more pleasant experience. (Though, I suppose, it wouldn’t have stopped McVeigh or Breivik.)” Though as a frequent traveler I share your frustrations with the TSA, profiling doesn’t make sense as a solution to its problems.

Instead, while we’re en route to mosque, I’d like to talk to you about something else. As I read your piece, which (along with the clarifying addendum you tacked on a few days later) failed to explain how you would determine who “looks… Muslim,” I thought back to another moment at the Global Atheist Convention a few weeks ago. As you were speaking, rumors began to fly that a group of extremist Muslims would be protesting the convention. Sure enough, a group of less than a dozen appeared just a short while later, holding signs that said “Atheists go to hell” and shouting horrible things. But to my dismay, their hate was mirrored by hundreds of conference attendees, some of whom shouted things like “go back to the middle east, you pedophiles,” tweeting ”maybe the Muslim protesters [are] gay so [they] don’t have wives? … A lot are/were camel shaggers,” and wearing shirts that said “Too stupid for science? Try religion.” Watching the scene unfold, I was reminded of how much work there is to be done in combating prejudice between the religious and the nonreligious.

I’m not sure you share my concerns about this divide. In fact, last year you wrote this about the 2011 attacks orchestrated by Anders Behring Breivik in Norway that resulted in the deaths of over 70 people:

One can only hope that the horror and outrage provoked by Breivik’s behavior will temper the growing enthusiasm for right-wing, racist nationalism in Europe. However, one now fears the swing of another pendulum: We are bound to hear a lot of deluded talk about the dangers of “Islamophobia” and about the need to address the threat of “terrorism” in purely generic terms.

In the wake of an atrocity of unimaginable proportions–one perpetrated by an anti-Muslim terrorist who was influenced by anti-Muslim writers–I could not believe that you decided to write a blog suggesting that the real problem is the fight against Islamophobia.

Whether you think so or not, Sam, Islamophobia is quite real. The American Muslim community experiences disproportionately high rates of discrimination and violence, and Islamophobic rhetoric has a significant bearing on this. This from a detailed report on the network of Islamophobia in America: “According to former CIA officer and terrorism consultant Marc Sageman, just as religious extremism ‘is the infrastructure from which Al Qaeda emerged,’ the writings of these anti-Muslim misinformation experts are ‘the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged.’”

As a society, we need to acknowledge the reality of the consequences of Islamophobia. As one Norwegian Muslim recently said:

“I think it is good and healthy that this comes out,” he told AFP in a telephone interview, arguing that Breivik built his ideology largely on the basis of Islam-critical writings in the media and online and rumors he has heard about violent Muslims. “This should help show people that this kind of rhetoric can be very, very dangerous. It is a wake-up call, and I think many people will moderate the way they talk about these things.”

We desperately need to discuss these things. An argument I frequently hear from atheists is that if moderate Muslims really exist, they need to speak out more. The problem is that Muslims are speaking out against extremists who cite Islam as their inspiration. Need some examples? There. Are. So. Many. That.I. Can’t. Link. To. Them. All. (But those eleven are a good start.)

The real problem is the Islamophobic misinformation machine, supported by our conflict-driven media. Stories of Muslims engaging in peaceful faith-inspired endeavors don’t sell nearly as well as stories of attempted Times Square bombings. Yet even coverage of violent stories is skewed against Muslims: for example, the mainstream media largely ignores violence against Muslims, such as when a mosque in Florida was bombed. (Just imagine the media frenzy if that had been a Muslim bombing a church.) The press also ignores stories of Muslim heroism, such as the fact that the man who stopped the Times Square bomber was himself a Muslim. Perhaps we perceive Islam as inherently violent, and imagine that an “Islam versus the West” clash of civilizations is inevitable, because our perspective is shaped by the warped way the media reports on Islam.

The feeling that we need to profile “Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim,” as you wrote–that Muslim Americans are dangerous and should be viewed with suspicion–is an outgrowth of the Islamophobic misinformation that proliferates our culture. I’m proud to say that nontheist organizations like the Center for Inquiry, the American Humanist Association, and the Institute for Science and Human Values recognize this, which is why just last week they signed on to a letter (alongside many interfaith and religious organizations) decrying racial and religious profiling.

The idea that we should single out Muslims is a misguided and damaging one, and it has serious ramifications for the Muslim community. After the thwarted “Christmas tree” bombing by a young Muslim in Portland, OR, Eboo Patel wrote:

It would be perfectly understandable if, in this time of Muslim terrorism and Islamophobia, everyday Muslims tried to slink into the shadows, to hide in the mosque. But it would be a huge mistake. Now more than ever, we need Muslim community leaders to be loud and proud about Islam’s glories, to inspire a new generation to follow in the footsteps of the Muslim heroes who bent the arc of the universe towards justice.

As Muslims become more and more marginalized, that will be increasingly difficult. When I posted a link to Patel’s column on my Facebook page, a friend commented on the FBI’s involvement in the Portland incident, and a subsequent arson attack on a Portland-area mosque: “I’m starting to wonder how any of this makes our country more secure or keeps our citizens safe. It certainly made things more dangerous for Muslims in Corvallis.”

I look around and I see a country deeply divided over the place of Muslims in America’s civic landscape–a nation roiling with fear and uncertainty, where hundreds of people will crowd outside of a benefit for a Muslim relief organization and scream things like “go home” and “terrorist” while waving American flags. That despicable display of anti-Muslim hate didn’t really make the news either, by the way.

Profiling feeds this fear and paranoia, and it plays right into the notion held by the tiny percentage of Muslims who are extremists that all Muslims are under attack and need to be defended. It is truly dangerous territory, and not just for Muslims–the recent congressional “Muslim radicalization” hearings in the U.S. echo the anti-gay “lavender scare” and the explicitly anti-atheist undertones of the “red scare” in the 1950s. As a gay atheist, I recognize that it could just as easily be me who is targeted.

But I do have hope, Sam. I’m currently reading a wonderful book called The Young Atheist’s Handbook by Alom Shaha–I could lend it to you after our mosque visit. In the book, Shaha writes about growing up Muslim and later becoming an atheist. In the fourth chapter of the book, he touches on the tragedy in Norway and delves into a lengthy, must-read exposition of the ugly reality of Islamophobia in the U.K., Australia, and the United States. In it, he points to the major role the media has played in guiding the narrative that says that Muslims are a monolithic, loathsome bloc–or as Shaha wrote, a perspective that “see[s] all Muslims as the same, and completely fail[s] to acknowledge the diversity and differences in values that are held by the millions of Muslims in the world.” Shaha goes on to write:

You may wonder why, if I no longer identify as Muslim, I care so deeply about this… Although I am an atheist, I nevertheless find it distressing that people can be contemptuous of all Muslims based on their own prejudices about what it means to be Muslim. Some atheists are guilty of this ideological categorization, too, and it bothers me that some of those who really should know better feel that Muslims and non-Muslims cannot, by definition, get along. I suspect this is a point on which I differ from more-hardline atheists, but perhaps my own experience of being judged for my skin colour has made me acutely sensitive to such judgments being exercised upon others.

Shaha is definitely on to something. Over the last few years, I’ve watched with despair as an increasing, increasingly-less-subtle xenophobic anti-Muslim undercurrent has spread throughout the atheist movement, cloaked by intellectual arguments against Islam’s metaphysical claims and practices and rallying cries in defense of free speech. Though it has been spreading throughout our broader culture, I’m especially disheartened to see it among my fellow atheists. At my first American Atheists conference, for example, I witnessed a crowd of people shout things like “show us some ankle” at three women wearing burkas for a satirical musical performance. It’s one thing to critique Islam; but the glee I saw in some of their faces as people whistled and shouted “take it off” was something else.

Writing about an incident where an American Atheists State Director posted an Islamophobic rant to their official Facebook page, atheist blogger Hemant Mehta said:

It’s always a touchy subject when atheists go after Islam… because people have to be very careful that they don’t stereotype all followers of Islam as if they’re all extremists. Our society does a terrible job of this. Atheists, especially when they’re ‘leaders’ among us, ought to know better than to fall into that trap.

You ought to know better, Sam. Your insistence that Islamophobia isn’t a problem and your willingness to play into the irrational anxieties of those who fear Muslims is irresponsible and dangerous. With your great reach, you have the opportunity to build bridges of understanding–instead, you have chosen to make the dividing lines that keep our communities apart that much thicker.

Read the rest….

Sam Harris, considered one of the “four horsemen” (now perhaps the “three horsemen” after the death of Christopher Hitchens) of the cult of new age atheism may be set to debate Dr. Robert Pape, or so he claims on his website:

Almost invariably, I am urged to read the work of Robert A. Pape. Pape is the author of a very influential paper, “The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism” (American Political Science Review 97, no. 3, 2003), and the book Dying to Win, in which he argues that suicide bombing is best understood as a strategic means to achieve certain well-defined nationalist goals and should not be considered a consequence of religious ideology. No one has done more to convince my fellow liberals that if we just behaved ourselves on the world stage, our problems with Islam would go away. I am happy to say that Pape has agreed to discuss these issues with me on this page in the coming weeks. Stay tuned…

I don’t believe Sam Harris belongs on the same stage or platform with Pape discussing these issues. He has no study in the field of “suicide terrorism,” he is a novice going up against an academic who has researched and critically analyzed the issue from various angles, and whose work has been the subject of intense scrutiny and peer review.

The tone and tenor in which Harris discusses his possible future encounter with Pape is revelatory in the sense that it exposes the fact that Harris’s mind is already made up. He is not interested in a real dialogue or conversation nor does he seem to be open to the possibility of changing his mind. Harris, like all dogmatists, has already arrived at his conclusion, he is entrenched in his belief that suicide terrorism is largely, if not completely a “consequence of religious ideology.” This is mostly the case because “suicide terrorism” being linked to religious ideology is vital to his claim that Islam is “uniquely” violent and should be held to a different level of scrutiny than other religions.

This recalls a prescient point Reza Aslan made in his interview with us when questioned about his encounter with Sam Harris:

There is no doubt Sam Harris is a smart guy, he has a PhD in neuro-science. You can be a smart guy and be ignorant about particular topics and issues. The problem with Sam Harris is that he tends to write about the things he is ignorant about, (laughs) I think Sam Harris should stick to writing about neuro-science, I think his last book was great. When Sam Harris writes about neuro-science, in other words his expertise, I think it’s great, I love reading his work. When he talks about religion, a topic he knows nothing about, that he’s never studied as an academic discipline, that he’s done no field research in whatsoever, and in which he frankly is unqualified to opine about, that’s the problem. I don’t write about nero-Science because I’m not a neuro-scientist.

Either way, it seems Pape has accepted Harris’s request to debate and it will be interesting to see the correspondence between the two. For Harris it may turn into a similar humiliation as the one he received when going head-to-head with Scott Atran:

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Lastly, I want to say a few words about the article in which Harris reveals he may be debating Pape. Harris titled the article, Islam and the Future of Liberalism, in it he essentially repeats many of his common, uncritical, and by now, well worn attacks on Islam and Muslims.

Like the predictable Islamophobe that he is, he illustrates his post with this image:

Orientalism 101 anyone?

Yes Sam, Afghan women in burqas is a really great way to illustrate the “threat” of  liberalism accommodating “evil Islam.” Can somebody send Harris, Edward Said‘s Covering Islam? He’s got some readin’ to do.

Harris writes,

I appear to have left many viewers with the impression that I believe we invaded Afghanistan for the purpose of rescuing its women from the Taliban. However, the points I was actually making were rather different: I think that abandoning these women to the Taliban is one of the things that make our inevitable retreat from Afghanistan ethically problematic. I also believe that wherever we can feasibly stop the abuse of women and girls, we should. An ability to do this in places like Afghanistan, and throughout the world, would be one of the benefits of having a global civil society and a genuine regime of international law.

Here is another instance of Harris posturing as an expert on an issue that he is wholly unprepared to discuss, mostly due to his lack of understanding.

Here are some facts for Sam to ponder: 1.) Afghanistan is a tribally based culture, following tribal customs and norms that are ingrained within society and which formed over thousands of years, you are not going to transform that over night, and you are definitely not going to do so with ‘smart bombs’ 2.) Who did the US replace the Taliban with? Northern Alliance war lords, many of whom are the most egregious violators TO THIS DAY of women’s rights. When they ruled before the Taliban child rape was endemic, as it has become once again today. 3.) Changing attitudes towards women can only happen from within society, unless Harris is advocating the removal of women and girls from their husbands, fathers and brothers? Oh wait, he has pondered such stupidity in the past.

Harris is not finished with the inanities, he writes,

Recent events in Afghanistan demonstrate, yet again, that ordinary Afghans grow far more incensed when a copy of the Qur’an gets defaced than when their own children are accidentally killed by our bombs—or intentionally murdered. I doubt there is a more ominous skewing of priorities to be found in this world.

Excuse me for how inarticulate I am about to become, but this must be said: Sam Harris is a S**THEAD. Harris dehumanizes Afghans, to him they are a bunch of dirty savages who cannot even properly mourn or balance their outrage. Regardless of what Harris says, yes, Afghans are very upset that they are being occupied and murdered by an invading foreign nation. The recent protests were not only in response to Qur’an burnings as Harris would have us believe, but as we noted: the murder, maiming and jailing of innocent Afghan civilians!

Harris continues the Islamophobic, anti-Muslim drivel in the rest of the article. He pushes the myth about the silent “millions” of moderate Muslims who are too “afraid” to speak out against violence in the name of their faith. He says that he finds the concept of a Jewish State “obnoxious,” but he immediately contradicts himself writing, “But if ever a state organized around a religion was justified, it is the Jewish state of Israel, given the world’s propensity for genocidal anti-Semitism.”

Profound double standards but that is something Harris has in common with the rest of his Islamophobic buddies in the anti-Muslim movement and hence comes as no surprise.

American Atheists has taken aim at Muslims and Jews with new billboards in Arabic and Hebrew. While atheists should be absolutely free to compete in the marketplace of ideas just like everyone else, this group isn’t merely offering an alternative to religion.

Despite their presumed appreciation for rational skepticism, the group appears to have been taken in by so-called “ex-Muslim” and confirmed loon, Ibn Warraq, and their negative portrayal of Islam sounds like it was cut-and-paste from a far right anti-Muslim hate site.

US atheist group targets Muslims and Jews

by Bob Pitt, Islamophobia Watch

CNN reports that the American Atheists organisation are targeting Muslim and Jewish communities with billboards in Arabic and Hebrew describing God as a “myth”.

Pamela Geller and Ibn Warraq

“We are not trying to inflame anything,” American Atheists president Dave Silverman is quoted as saying. “We are trying to advertise our existence to atheists in those communities. The objective is not to inflame but rather to advertise the atheist movement in the Muslim and Jewish community.”

Yeah, right.

American Atheists, you may recall, is the organisation involved in the “Zombie Muhammad” case, in which one of their members claimed that he was assaulted by a Muslim during a Halloween parade. After the case was dimissed because of lack of supporting evidence, American Atheists expressed outrage that the judge had refused to take the word of a white American over that of a “Muslim immigrant”.

The American Atheists website features a long essay attacking Islam and Muslims which the authors state is “greatly dependent upon the excellent books written or compiled by Ibn Warraq”. It contains passages like these:

Mohammedans prefer to be called Muslims – a term derived from the Arabic ’aslama, meaning ‘to resign oneself [to Allah]‘. They prefer their religion to be called Islam (from Arabic ’islam, meaning ‘submission’) rather than Mohammedanism. Most western scholars have gone along with this, rather than risk the wrath of purportedly peaceful members of ‘the third great Abrahamic faith’. Nevertheless, Mohammedanism seems to be a perfectly appropriate name for a religion which currently poses so great a threat to secular civilizations throughout the world….

Despite the occasionally tolerant references in the Qur’an to “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians in addition to Muslims), the non-Muslims need to be eliminated. Convert them or kill them, or make them pay a religious ransom to continue the private practice of their religion. (Of necessity, Muslims must reject the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.) Atheists and Agnostics, who deny the reality of Allah, are also wicked blasphemers. They need to be eliminated also. It is preferable to kill them.

True, the authors go on to state that intolerance is “a natural attribute of all monotheistic religions”. However, no extended essay can be found on the American Atheists site attacking Christianity and Christians in equally vitriolic terms.

But this has become a distinguishing feature of the so-called “new atheism”. The legitimate secular objective of separating church and state has been sidelined in favour of attacking minority ethno-religious communities, and Muslims in particular, often employing language which is indistinguishable from that of the racist right.